1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to a substance for disinfecting virus and bacteria and, in particular, to a chemical substance that digests and disinfects virus and bacteria so as to break them down and suppress their infection to host cells and proliferation. The present invention also relates to a method for producing such substance.
2. Technical Background
Microbes such as virus and bacteria are microorganisms responsible for many diseases, many of which are fatal to human if infected. Various medical treatments including vaccination and drug cures are available for human in the defense against known microbes. However, for known or unknown virus and bacteria alike for which no known defense or cure are available are fierce enough to inflict high mortality and are capable of efficient infection schemes such as airborne transmission, the first and only effective means for protection is disinfection.
Disinfection of virus and bacteria can be achieved physically, chemically and biochemically. Physical disinfection schemes include heating, drying, freezing, radioactive irradiation and filtration, etc. These physical disinfection schemes are relatively constrained in terms of factors such as characteristics of environments in which to perform such processing. Chemical and biochemical disinfection schemes are thus more practically applicable for defense against virus and bacteria.
Materials and substances generally used as chemical or enzymatic disinfectants include acid, alkaline, alcohol, carbolic acid, formaldehyde, surfactants, halogen, heavy metals, dyes oxidants and protease etc. in principle, they achieve microorganism disinfection chemically or enzymatically via one or more of four of the following effects: damages to envelope/membrane, destruction of cellular transportation, viral/bacterial protein digestion/denaturing, and enzyme reactivity and/or receptor affinity suppression.
Effectiveness of chemical/enzymatic disinfectants is varied. In principle, the more effective is a chemical/enzymatic disinfectant, the more hazardous it is likely to human. Selection of disinfectants depends on factors including the type of the target microbe, characteristics of the site to apply disinfection, and disease prevention requirements, among others.
In general, an ideal chemical/enzymatic disinfectant should qualify the following characteristics: effectiveness against a broad variety of microbes; negligible susceptibility to organic compounds, superior viral/bacterial surface destructive capability; non-corrosive, non-toxic and non-irritative to human; chemical/biochemical stability with accelerated disinfecting effectiveness; high water solubility; sustained adherence to the surface of the disinfected object for sustained viral/bacterial suppression capability; and reasonable cost for mass production.